


Shoots and Ladders

by SegaBarrett



Category: Bates Motel (2013)
Genre: Bonding, Gen, Treat, mentions of abuse, swings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-25
Updated: 2015-08-25
Packaged: 2018-04-17 03:55:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4651269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SegaBarrett/pseuds/SegaBarrett
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dylan and Caleb unwind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shoots and Ladders

**Author's Note:**

  * For [FreshBrains](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FreshBrains/gifts).



> Disclaimer: I don't own Bates Motel and I make no money from this.
> 
> A/N: When I saw this pairing I had to write something for a treat :D I don't know if this is exactly what you wanted, but... I took a stab at it :)

If someone had asked Dylan to come up with phrases to describe the relationship between his father and him, he didn’t think he would be able to.

The two of them were sometimes friends, sometimes enemies, sometimes co-workers. But father and son? Were they really? Could they be? Was it something that grew in time?

Dylan was contemplating these questions from one of the cots that he’d wheeled into the cabin so he didn’t always need to go home and Caleb didn’t need to always go back to that dank, dark, and depressing van. 

He felt a sense of unease that he couldn’t quite put his finger on.

Dylan rolled over and found himself staring at the other cot, the one that Caleb was sleeping on. He’d pulled off his shirt at some point during the night, which wasn’t surprising as the cabin didn’t have air conditioning and the temperatures got downright subtropical sometimes. He propped his chin up by his hands and just look at the other man’s back a moment. He realized that he’d never really looked at Caleb, never looked for all the similarities that had to be there. 

They were, after all, more related than two people really ought to be.

Caleb’s back was to him, and he was curled up into himself as if he fear some incoming attack – his arm was hooked under his leg and his head bowed slightly in. Dylan wondered how the hell anyone could actually sleep like that, but he figured Caleb had a lot of years of practice.

It made Dylan remember the way he’d slept when Sam was on the prowl, and he shuddered. He sat up, feeling more than a little voyeuristic and kind of wishing Caleb would stir and shock him out of his looky-loo state. 

The thing that hooked Dylan’s eyes in was the scars. Caleb’s back was covered in cris-crossed red marks that looked like they’d healed up, initially, years and years ago but hadn’t faded. Instead, they’d melded into his skin like a name carved into a tree. 

The older man stirred. Dylan shuffled out of his bed and tried to look normal. Whatever that meant.

Caleb yawned and climbed off his own cot. He turned to look at Dylan with a sheepish, tired smile.

“Morning, Dylan.”

“…Uh, morning, Caleb,” Dylan replied, his arm flying up in the air in some random gesture he couldn’t quite put his finger on. The older man cocked his head to the side and stared at Dylan in a look that indicated that he knew something was up, but didn’t know what and didn’t really have the time or energy to figure out what.

“We should have the barn done today,” Caleb continued.

“Oh?”

Caleb reached his hands up and dragged them over his face, then looked back directly at his son.

“What’s up with you?”

Dylan made a little gesture that looked like he was trying to jab someone in a boxing match. 

“Not much. I just… I, uh, caught a glimpse of your back and I kind of… What’s all that about?”

Caleb looked at him sheepishly, dragging a hand over his face again.

“Dylan. Kid… Listen.” He sat back down on the cot and looked Dylan up and down. He seemed to be trying to figure out what to tell him, or if to tell him anything at all. “I told you about how I grew up. And after I got older and I left… Things were rough then too. I don’t want that for you, though. None of that for you.”

Dylan sighed.

“Too late.” He brushed a piece of hair out of his face. “I mean… It wasn’t as bad. But Sam – Norman’s dad – he was pretty bad. Probably a pretty big piece of why Norman is the way he is.”

Caleb’s hand darted out to hold Dylan’s.

“And you were in there? Alone?”

“Well, yeah. I guess. But I made it through, man. No reason to be like that.” Dylan instinctively pulled his hand away. “I’m cool. I’m doing fine. It didn’t really, you know, leave a mark like that.” 

“It always does, Dylan.”

Caleb shifted a little closer to his son. He looked him up and down awkwardly, then put a hand on his shoulder.

“I know I haven’t been in your life that long, and I know everything about this is weird. But you’re my son and I love you, okay?” He drew him in a little closer, and to Dylan’s own surprise, he submitted to it, which ended up with his head on Caleb’s shoulder. There was something nice about this, even if his mind was warning him to be suspicious. John had been like this, once upon a time, hadn’t he? Dylan couldn’t really remember. He had always had that feeling of being apart from everyone else, of watching the world go on around him but being in the audience instead of having a part on stage.

It wasn’t quite as weird as what Norman and Norma got up to, after all, so what reason did Dylan have to feel guilty about getting close to Caleb? Maybe it was what he needed; maybe he had always needed someone to show him physical affection, to make him feel like he mattered.

“You’re good,” Caleb repeated, rubbing Dylan’s back. “You can always stay, stay here with me okay?”

“I want to,” Dylan replied quickly. He was surprised to find how much that seemed like the truth. Caleb had accepted him for who he was. He’d shown him attention even when Dylan didn’t want it, when he chased him away. What was he supposed to take from that? What did that say about him, about either of them?

“Listen, let’s not work on the barn today. Let’s get out. Let’s do something?”

“Like what?” Dylan asked, “Go to the bar or something?”

Caleb shrugged.

“I think it’s better for my liver if we don’t go to the bar this time. Also, I think I got a tab I haven’t paid.”

***

“You know you’re going to get kicked out of here, right?” Dylan’s eyes were amused, and he was smirking as they walked through the grass and arrived at the small park. There were children running around, spinning in the merry-go-round and swinging on the small swings, but a few of the swings meant for older children were free. 

“Nah, we’re just swingin’,” Caleb replied, heading for one. He climbed aboard and started to stretch his legs out as Dylan shook his head and laughed. 

“Seriously?”

“Naw, Dylan. Get on. C’mon. Bonding, y’know?”

Dylan shook his head, but he climbed on to the next swing with some difficulty. How had he even managed this as a kid without falling off and cracking his head open?

But he did remember. He remembered sneaking out to go swing in the park, in the dark, when Sam was on another one of his tirades and there was nothing he could do – not for him, not for Norma, not for tiny Norman.

A few times he’d taken Norman with him, pulled him by the hand and pushed him around the merry-go-round, promising everything would be okay. Before the resentment started, before Dylan would sneak out and smoke by the park instead of playing in it.

He brushed that thought off and kicked his legs into the air. Maybe if he’d known Caleb back then, things would be different. He remembered sitting in the bar, talking to the man, asking about the family he’d never met and feeling wanted and appreciated for the first time in his life; before Norma had pulled the rug out from under him and told him everything, that was.

But there was still a little bit of it left. He looked across at the other man, who was slumping and fumbling on the chains and looking like an overgrown child himself.  
Inside, was he still the teenager who’d been in love with his sister? Had he ever changed, ever grown?

And yet he loved Dylan too, looked after him. The way a father would, though? An uncle? An older brother?

Somehow Caleb seemed to be all of these and then some. And still more.

“Hey, look at me!” the older man called, and he threw himself off the swings to land on his knees in the woodchips, rolling slightly. Dylan chuckled. 

“I’m not getting a lot of propulsion,” he replied, letting his hands hang off the chains to rest in his lap.

“I’ll push ya,” Caleb offered, circumventing the rest of the swings and narrowly missing getting kicked in the head by a little boy. There was a run in his step, a quickening of his motions. A weird excitement.

Dylan didn’t know how to feel about that. He’d felt hollowed out for so long now that he didn’t know what a name for this was, whatever they were doing.

Before he could think any more about it, Caleb had placed his hands on Dylan’s upper back and was giving him a spirited push that almost knocked him off the swing entirely. Dylan let out a surprised laugh, but flew forward and kicked his feet up, gaining some steam.

It was a weird feeling, a carefree feeling.

It must have started to get late after a while; Dylan noticed the children and families packing it up and going home for the night. He wondered if any of those families were like his.

The clouds were disappearing behind a darkening sky. Dylan slowed, then jumped off the swing. He looked up at Caleb.

“Merry-go-round?” he asked with a shrug.

They ran to it, Dylan taking a running jump. If he could forget everything else, it would just be this moment between the two of them. A moment he wouldn’t have to explain and justify. They both had scars, and they’d have to learn to live with them. They’d have to figure out what it was they meant to each other, and how to make this work.

His feet hit the rusted red metal. Caleb ran, gripping a white railing and spinning it before jumping on as well.

The town blurred by. Whatever this ride they were on, at least they were on it together.


End file.
